Education of an Ingenue
by notesinred
Summary: Leroux canon, set just after Christine takes off Erik's mask for the first time. EC, of sorts, but this is not the nice, watered-down Erik we often think of...One shot, semi-missing moment.


_Christine. I first saw her in the chapel: she was young, still a child despite her years. Even then, her voice called to me. I remember she sang a pretty little child's song to her father's ghost, but she looked so dark and raw…she sang not to him, but to the night. To me._

Damn you and your infernal innocence! Why? Why did you want to see this, you little _viper! _What need had you to know...How now can you help but hate me? Give it back, damn you, give it back, why...You want to know, do you? _Is that what you want?_ Scheming minx! ...So, then! Hear it! Why do shrink back, Little Lotte? Are you still that much a child? What, now you don't want to hear what Erik has to say? It's too late now, _isn't_ it. Hah! Life is full of _choices_, my dear, and you've made yours, haven't you?

You seem faint! Whatever can it be? Fear? Oh, but you can't let death's half-brother take you _yet, _that's not polite, is it? You must be mine for a few moments longer... Now, you see, when I first came here, I was no older than you. I lived in the deepest of the cellars—yes, here! _Why do you look so?_ They were not always this cheerful—had my presence been suspected, my nature been known, you think I would have been _permitted _to carry on this wretched existance? NO! I would have been hunted down as the monster I am. But does not every creature have a right to their mean existence? The rats are allowed their place in the cellars, the fleas in their beds, but Erik is not.

I came and went at will; at times I left for years at a time, but I always came back, because the music called to me. Oh yes, love, I could not tear myself from it. I thought then that music was the one redeeming grace of a cursed and vile race, but then I had not met you...I lived like this—don't pity me, I see it in your eyes!—No, I was not happy. I can never in my life claim to have been happy, but for these all-too-brief moments with you, but the music sustained me. (Oh, how I understood it, loved it! Far better than those cultured idiots who swarm into Erik's opera house for their beloved little performances.)

You wonder how I came to be the Opera Ghost? Of course you do. A caretaker—foolish man—found his way into one of my cellars. He never made it out, of course; suicide is a dangerous thing, my dear. I left him for Those Above to find. A few more accidents of this sort, and Erik had readily established himself as the Opera Ghost.—It is ironic, is it not? I am as much a man as any other, and I am made nothing more than a spirit, to live just outside the world that I watch so closely.—Mme. Giry was invaluable, you see, not that she has ever known. Once she had cought the owner's eye was soon to bear his wrinkled and mewling little bratling, she was in an excellent position to further my cause. –Yes, she helps me! How else do you think I found you, stupid child? She fears me, too. Such is my lot; I can never know friendship or love—or, I _could_ never know it.

Look, you recoil! Oh, love. I wish to Hell I never had to hide my face, but Fate has long since decided that for me. These mirrors torment Erik…that is why he keeps them. _Pain_ reminds me why I live, when morphine would have me fade into contented oblivion. ...And so my life went, from opera to opera, season to season, night to crimson, sympathetic night…until I saw you.

I have never trusted humans. They who laughed and spit on my deformity! My own mother recoiled from my face. To mme. Giry I owe a debt to that I can never forget, but she has long been under my influence. First she was sympathetic; now she is subservient. César respects my power and heeds not my appearance (sad, isn't it? A beast is the creature that truly respects my strength), but I had no equal until you. Christine, Christine—you alone have I loved...

Your skin was so pale against the darkness that first night, as you spoke to your angel; the absolute intensity of your eyes on the miniature captured me entirely. All of the others were afraid of the cellars, in the dark. But not you: You went looking for it! In the night, you answered to no one. In the velvet black you spoke to me, your master. Oh yes, Christine, you of which I speak. We are more alike than you think. We are both creatures of the night; that is why you come to me, is it not…my _angel_?


End file.
